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Dan Dare: Movie of the Future

There can be no doubt that Hollywood regards the comic-book industry as one of it's most valuable resources. Whilst comic sales are dwindling, increasingly the characters within them are jumping, ready story-boarded, onto the big screen. US Comics giants Marvel and DC dominate the scene with superheroes such as Spider-man and Batman. There's a hugely anticipated Superman film on it's way, whilst recently we've been treated to The X-Men, Daredevil, Elektra, The Fantastic Four and The Punisher! Perhaps it's time that the Hollywood studios broadened their horizons and looked for a hero who doesn't wear spandex, doesn't wave the stars and stripes and who can save the planet whilst smoking a pipe. Of course I'm talking about Dan Dare.

Dan Dare: Square-jawed heroics

For those not in the know, Dan Dare has been one of the UK's most popular and enduring space-farers. He arrived on the scene in 1950 as the flagship strip of the Eagle, Britain's morally upright reply to the American horror comics then hitting our shores. Frank Hampson, Dare's creator, had originally envisaged his creation to be a chaplain in the 'Interplanet Space Fleet', but adapted him to become 'Pilot of the Future'. Dan Dare lost the dog-collar, but kept his sense of fair-play and justice. The pattern of the strip was set with the first story, in which Dan voyages to Venus in order to solve Earth's food crisis, battles his arch-enemy, the Mekon, and returns in triumph. Although Dan was an archetypal British hero, the artwork was far beyond anything previously published in this country, or indeed abroad. Hampson had taken much of his inspiration from Flash Gordon, but vastly bettered that strip with the benefit of high quality gravure printing, a hand picked studio of artists, and a time-consuming attention to detail which drove him to work long, punishing hours. Hampson's long story arcs also hit the mark, balancing action with a well observed interplay of characters. With Arthur C. Clarke as an advisor, the science never strayed too far into the realms of gobbledygook.

Dan Dare achieved huge popularity in the 'fifties and into the 'sixties. Hulton Press, Eagle's publishers, took a leaf from Disney's book and licensed a vast amount of Dan Dare tie-in merchandise. Considering the popularity of the strip, and Hulton's eagerness to wring out any profit, it's a surprise that a Dan Dare film was not made then. A 1958 movie proposal failed to get into production, but Dan did get onto the screen that year. Sadly it was not the cinema screen, and not even the British Dan Dare! Spanish Radio had broadcast 'Diego Valor' as an adventure serial, based on Radio Luxembourg's long running Dan Dare adaptation. 1958 saw Diego Valor on television sets across Spain.

Great-great-grandson Dare

Whilst Diego Valor was the first reworking of Dan Dare, more were to follow. After Eagle folded in 1969, the character next popped up in 1977, launching the british sci-fi comic 2000AD. Injured in an accident, Dare had been frozen for over a hundred years until medicine could revive him. With a bunch of thugs as his crew, the 2000AD Dan Dare was a far more violent affair than the fifties strip had ever been. 1982 saw the revival of Eagle, this time with a younger, blond Dan Dare. This was the great-great-grandson of the original Dare, his story set some 200 years after the first Dare's adventures. Later, in 1989, the short-lived comic Revolver ran a politicised Dare strip, which saw the space hero come out of retirement to confront some unpleasant truths about the dystopian world in which he lived.

This last take on Dan Dare could well have been the first to make it to the cinema screen. In 1992 director Ridley Scott (Alien) comissioned Grant Morrison, the author of the Revolver strip, to write a screen treatment of Dan Dare. It seems that this project never made its way into production.

Dan Dare - CGI hero

It took over half a century, but Dan Dare finally got his own TV series in 2001, and the $20 million CGI series aired across the world. This version of Dare was a modern take on the original 50's strip. Parts of the show were purposely anachronistic, like the ramp-launched spaceships, the 50's style spacesuits and the terribly un-PC misogynism of the Space Fleet crew. Some concessions were made to the twenty-first century classless society, and some changes were made to broaden the show's appeal to an international audience. For instance - Albert Digby, formerly Colonel Dare's comical northern batman, dropped his broad Wigan vowels for a cockney accent, and gained rank to become the Anastasia's first officer. The series boasted such guest stars as Robbie Coltrane, Tim Curry and Charles Dance. In the UK it has run repeatedly on Channel Five and has been seen around the world from Latin America to New Zealand.

With the success of the series, naturally it seemed that a film would follow. In June 2001, Variety ran an article with the headline 'Dare' orbits bigscreen, announcing that plans for a Dan Dare film were afoot. Several years have passed since then, so has this project fallen by the wayside? Cinemas-Online contacted the Dan Dare Corporation, who were responsible for the TV series and holders of the rights to Dan Dare. The good news for fans of the British spaceman is that work is being done on the film right now, currently the script concept is being worked through. The aim is for the film to feature live actors superimposed over computer generated backgrounds. The movie is being represented by of Hollywood's biggest agents, which Dan Dare Corporation chairman Colin Frewin counts as a 'real success'.

So, what might the film be like? The technique of pasting actors in over a background is not new, in fact ATV planned to do this in their aborted 1980 Dan Dare television series, electronically keying actors over a drawn comic strip background. Results from this technique were patchy at best, as can be seen in the 1982 TV adaptation of WWII Daily Mirror cartoon strip Jane, and the 80's Children's show Captain Zep. Thankfully, this technology has moved on and backgrounds are no longer limited to static illustrations. Using CGI, it has become possible to create a perfectly convincing background for actors to move around and interact with. A prime example of this kind of filming is the 2004 movie 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow', which was shot digitally in just one studio against a blue screen. The actors were then composited into a computer generated world of airships, rockets and giant flying robots.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
a seamless blend of live-action and CGI

Sky Captain and Dan Dare share more than CGI wizardry. Both are flying aces, both owe much of their inspiration to Flash Gordon and both share the same brand of understated British heroism. It's too early to speculate, but given the Sky Captain treatment, Dan Dare could certainly make an impact.

It will be some time before we can expect to see Dan Dare at the cinema, but at Cinemas-Online we are eagerly awaiting his square-jawed heroics.

MORE INFORMATION

Official Site
www.dandare.co.uk - Official website of the Dan Dare Corporation

Fan Sites
www.dandare.org, www.eaglecomic.com, www.dan-dare.net, dandare.freeservers.com, www.dandare.info

Discussion
groups.yahoo.com/group/dandare - Yahoo Discussion Group

Buy Stuff
www.amazon.co.uk - Buy the DVD
www.amazon.co.uk - Buy the books

Article by: Andrew Paul

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